The present invention relates to a charged particle beam apparatus and a method of operating the same and more particularly to a charged particle beam apparatus and a method of operating the same suitable for automatically setting an optimum operating condition of the apparatus.
For a charged particle beam apparatus, such as for example scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray microanalyzer (XMA or EPMA) and ion microanalyzer (IMA), which forms a scan image of a specimen in accordance with a specimen information signal derived from the specimen scanned with a spot of charged particle beam, it is very important to form the scan image of the structure and/or composition of the specimen with accuracy and clearness.
And for observation and/or analysis using the charged particle beam apparatus, the quality of the scan image is strongly affected by whether or not the conditions of various parts of the apparatus, such as, for example, conditions of accelerating voltage, probe current and lens of electron optical system, are set in optical values corresponding to the purpose.
Therefor, selecting the operation condition of the apparatus suitable for a specimen is important for observation and/or analysis using a charged particle beam apparatus.
In the past, an operator has found an optimum condition by trial and error on the basis of the operator's experience in observation and/or analysis using a charged particle apparatus.
In the past, owing to the fact, as described above, that an optimum operating condition of the apparatus for a specimen has been set, in most cases, on the basis of the operator's experience, setting optimum operating conditions of the apparatus for various kinds of specimens has been time-consuming, and moreover differences in operators' experiences have likely caused a problem of discrepancy in the results of observations of the same specimen.